


Déjà Vécu

by illertra



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 21:52:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14387859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illertra/pseuds/illertra
Summary: It is 1925, and the witch watches the Salem boy, coveting that which he cannot have. It is 1926, and the devil tempts the sinner, wearing black eyes and soft hands. It is 1931, and two strangers stare, pausing for a moment then parting ways.





	Déjà Vécu

**Author's Note:**

> Déjà Vécu, n. - an intense feeling of déjà vu that makes it impossible to discern past from present.

Mr. Graves from before had radiated heat, hiding a furnace inside his chest that lit his dark eyes like oil lamps. Credence had watched those eyes when he thought Graves wouldn't notice, and he had imagined he could see embers from the fire dancing up behind them, setting the whole world to burn.

This Mr. Graves--the original, the mould--is simply warm in the way all human bodies are warm. His eyes are dull and flat, flinty with caution, or perhaps resignation. He is just a man. A weak, broken, unfamiliar man. It is amazing that no one noticed the difference between one and the other, Credence thinks cruelly. This man is nothing like the Graves he knew.

The part of him that is kind, that is not angry, that does not hate hate  _ hate _ this man for what he is and what he is not, whispers that perhaps this Graves was once like the other Graves. Perhaps this Graves had once shone like Lucifer before the fall and looked out at the world with eyes that burned. Perhaps someone had doused the furnace in his chest, plucked the light from his eyes, stolen his skin and left him to moulder in the deep dark so long that he should have forgotten how to be human. Perhaps "just a man" is the fruit of an indomitable will. But the rest of Credence, which is not so kind, which has sloughed away the gentle words of a dark-haired witch, the soft eyes of a wizard in blue, the grasp of a little girl's cold hand, resents this man: the original who is so much less than the copy. 

The darkness in him reaches out,  _ Hold me, use me, save me, _ but Graves will not take it. There is no fire in him to consume it, to burn it away. There is only the answering blackness of a soul that has been hollowed out.

_ What did he do to you, _ say his deep, inky eyes.  _ What did he do to make you this way?  _ And Credence wants to tell him, "Nothing. He didn't make me what I am. I've always been like this." Wants to tell him, "I don't owe him anything. I don't owe you," but the words won't come. Graves hears them anyway.

They meet again and again, each time the same. It's like peering into a deep well and seeing a stranger staring back at you in the glinting water. It's like finding your own soul in the body of an enemy.

The last time they see each other, their eyes lock from across a busy New York street, a dark mirror of the first. Credence is no longer a Salemer’s child, cold and alone and starving for the burning touch of a dead man. Graves is no longer director of anything, simply the specter of a past self, victim of a grand cause.

Everything has changed. And yet.

And yet, this moment seems frozen in time: static, untouched. It is 1925, and the witch watches the Salem boy, coveting that which he cannot have. It is 1926, and the devil tempts the sinner, wearing black eyes and soft hands. It is 1931, and two strangers stare, pausing for a moment then parting ways. The witch and Salem boy, the devil and sinner, they're all dead and gone. They all live in the two strangers, gazes locked across a busy New York street.

There is an apology in Graves’ inkwell eyes, but the words won't come. Credence hears them anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Thank you so much for reading! I've been in the fandom for a while now, but this is my first fic. Unbeta'd so if you see any typos, please let me know.  
> You can catch me on Tumblr as seraph_font.


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